Perhaps not enough to get overly concerned about, but the manufacturing sector did take a bit of a hit in September.
Figures released Tuesday by Statistics Canada showed manufacturing decreased 0.2% in September to $57.4 billion, following a 0.8% increase in August.
The nation's number-crunchers reported that sales were down in 10 of 21 industries, representing 62.2% of the Canadian manufacturing sector. Sales in the petroleum and coal product and the motor vehicle parts industries accounted for the majority of the decrease in September.
However, StatsCan stresses, these decreases were largely offset by increases in the machinery and motor vehicle industries.
Constant dollar sales decreased 0.7%, indicating that a lower volume of products was sold in September.
Manufacturing sales declined 1.3% to $172.0 billion in the third quarter. In volume terms, manufacturing sales fell 1.0% in the third quarter, mostly due to lower volumes sold in the petroleum and coal product (-2.4%), food (-1.5%) and chemical (-1.9%) industries.
